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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

How much would you pay to be seen by your friends and family?

I have heard that now Facebook is charging a hefty price of $7 to allow you to promote your posts to your family and friends. In other words, to get your posts at the top of the heap you can now fork over $7 to Facebook. Isn't that swell?

The [a]social network started testing a new feature in the U.S. today
that lets people buy promoted posts. Facebook will push your selected
post to the top of news feeds, increasing the likelihood of your friends
and subscribers seeing it.

A Facebook representative said the company is not confirming how much
promoting a post will cost, because the feature is still in test mode,
but when we took the feature for a spin, it showed a $7 price tag.
Source: cnet.com

"A fool and his money are soon parted"What kind of a world do we live in when one has to pay money in order to be seen amongst their friends and family? While there is obviously a business side to this ridiculous new feature, the reality is that it only makes me happier to have left Facebook behind.

Imagine for a moment that you want to let the world know that you are cooking something special at home tonight. Perhaps you already have the table set, but last time you shared pictures of the big meal nobody commented (the horror!). This time you worked so hard on that Kraft macaroni and cheese that you can't bear it to go unnoticed (you even put a drop of olive oil into the water, you chef you!). You figure that you usually spend about $15.00 to eat out, but the box of macaroni was only $0.77. Why not splurge a little? After all, getting it to the top of the heap is a lot cheaper than going out to eat (plus, if you eat at home you'll have more time for late night (a)social networking).

If you are paying to get your status update to the top, you'd better be smart about it.Face it, if you are going to be handing money over to the folks at Facebook, you'd better get your money's worth. Why not throw in something else for good measure? In other words, don't just share with the world that you cooked your own dinner with a link to the picture. Throw in something really juicy. For example, later on you may feel compelled to pay another $7 to tell the world you just broke up with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Why not throw that in the same status update? Two messages for $7 is a lot better than blowing $14 for two.

Example: I just made the most amazing Mac-n-Cheese! [picture] It lOoKs TaNtALiZiNg, hUh?! And I dumped Chuck! That's rite: I'm hella single!

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I imagine that some people are going to be having fun with this new feature. Others will roll their eyes and state how much they hate Facebook for it, but many of these same people will continue to use Facebook! Sadly, many believe that Facebook is a requirement of being alive.

Facebook is, contrary to popular belief, NOT a necessity!

Maybe it's time to step away from the computer and/or phone. Maybe today is the day to get your life back to basics, so to speak. Why subsist in a world where people are paying money to be seen and heard? Why feel the need to pay when you want your family and friends to see what you have to say? (A)social networks are going to continue to nickel and dime you until you are flat out broke. Isn't the cost of being on these sites, in terms of lost productivity, enough? Isn't the loss of time that you could spend with family, friends, improving yourself, improving your life, creating, and thriving, a high enough cost? Perhaps you doubted the message before, but now you may be starting to see that Facebook is on a downward decline. There is a problem when a site has to resort to charging people a fee to make what one says important. Everything you say should be important to your family members without the need to pay for it. Everything you say should mean something to your friends. Is Facebook now so full of spam posts that there is a need to pay to be seen?

In today's dumbed down world of cell phone addiction and quick, awkward doses of human interaction, many people have forgot just how to interact with other human beings. Sadly, as a result, one finds them-self paying to be seen. There is no need for you to pay money so you can be seen on a virtual world of make believe. Why not pick up the phone and call someone instead if you have something that you find worth paying for? Why literally throw money in the trash instead of either saving it for your future, putting it to work for you, or donating it to a good cause? Heck, put it toward a Wii U. There comes a time to spend money, and there comes a time to say "enough is enough." This is one of the latter times.

2 comments:

And they said I was free and was going to be free forever.I was doubting about that, and here's how they are charging $7 to promote a damn post in their shitty site. They are just like cellular phone companies, selling garbage services.

> Is Facebook now so full of spam posts that there is a need to pay to be seen?

Perhaps that's the reason to entice people to pay $7 to rise to the top instead of being buried by spam.

Here in Singapore, US$7 can buy another a meal & drink at a hawker centre & have face to face interaction. It may not be a restaurant but it boosts the local economy instead of to facebook.

Just a couple of days back i was at a traffic junction with 6 others. All were in a sense 'umbilical cord' to their cellphones -1 was talking, 5 was playing with it. How many on facebook? I have no idea.

Similarly on the subway train many seated commuters play with their smartphones. Facebook addiction? I don't know. It would be more productive if they were reading a book instead.